Rashard Mendenhall Is Suing Hanes For Dropping His Endorsement Deal After He Tweeted About Osama Bin Laden

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) —
Pittsburgh Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall is
suing the parent company of the Champion sports apparel maker,
calling the decision to drop his endorsement deal over his
tweets about the death of Osama bin Laden and the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks a breach of contract.

Mendenhall's lawyers filed suit Monday in U.S. District Court
in North Carolina, seeking roughly $1 million in damages from
Hanesbrands, Inc., the Winston-Salem-based corporate parent of
Champion.

The complaint says Champion's decision to end its endorsement
deal with Mendenhall in May, days after he questioned the
public celebration of bin Laden's death, violates a contract
extension the two parties signed in 2010, worth over $1
million. Mendenhall first signed a deal to endorse Champion
products when he entered the league in 2008.

"For Rashard, this really is not about the money. This is about
whether he can express his opinion," said Steven Thompson, a
Chicago-based attorney representing Mendenhall.

"An athlete contracts away his free speech rights in signing
his endorsement deal," said Jeffrey Standen, a sports law
professor and associate dean at Willamette University College
of Law in Salem, Ore. "What the sponsor is buying is the
athlete's name and image, and their name and image are related
to public behavior and opinions."

Shortly after bin Laden was killed by a team of Navy SEALs,
Mendenhall tweeted, in response to scenes of euphoria around
the U.S., "What kind of person celebrates death? It's amazing
how people can HATE a man they have never even heard speak.
We've only heard one side..." He also tweeted on the Sept. 11
attacks: "We'll never know what really happened. I just have a
hard time believing a plane could take a skyscraper down
demolition style."

The comments prompted significant anger, leading to a
clarification by Mendenhall and a separate statement by
Steelers team president Art
Rooney II distancing the organization from Mendenhall's
remarks. But his number of Twitter
followers nearly doubled to around 37,000 within a few days of
the tweets.

Hanesbrands' decision to drop the Steelers star was likely a
"kneejerk reaction" made within 48 hours of the tweets,
Thompson said. The swiftness of that move contrasts with
Champion's silence regarding other contentious tweets by
Mendenhall, the lawsuit claims.

On March 15, for example, Mendenhall tweeted about his
agreement with Minnesota
Vikings running back Adrian Peterson's comments comparing
the NFL to
"modern-day slavery."

"Anyone with knowledge of the slave trade and the NFL could say
that these two parallel each other," Mendenhall wrote.

About six weeks later, he tweeted that women who decline to
perform oral sex on a partner should be aware that "It's either
gonna be you, OR some other chick."

"Hanesbrands at no time prior to May 2011 suggested that it
disagreed with Mr. Mendenhall's comments or that his tweets
were in any way inconsistent with the values of the Champion
brand," the lawsuit says.

That might not matter, according to Michael McCann, director of
the Sports Law Institute at the Vermont Law School.

"The company's concern, I would imagine, is not really the
content of what he's saying, but the public reaction to what
he's saying," McCann said.

Most athlete endorsers have contracts that include deliberately
vague language concerning off-the-field behavior that companies
can use in situations exactly like these, McCann said. Such
language was cited in a May 11 letter to Mendenhall's
representatives, written by Lynette Fuller-Andrews, a lawyer
for Hanesbrands.

The running back's contract included provisions barring
Mendenhall from actions that would bring him "into public
disrepute, contempt, scandal or ridicule, or tending to shock,
insult, or offend the majority of the consuming public," along
with other terms, Fuller-Andrews wrote.

"It's going to be tough for him to prevail, because that gives
the company a lot of leeway," McCann said. "Once you sign off
on very generic, all-inclusive phraseology, it's very hard to
get out of that."